Board lacks leaders to take on Srinivasan: Manohar

Bangalore, 2014/Apr/18 06:42:00

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While some of the state associations have forced the Indian cricket board to call for an emergency meeting, former BCCI president Shashank Manohar is of the opinion that the meeting would not have any effect on N Srinivasan, who is facing heat over the IPL spot-fixing and betting scandal.

Srinivasan, who had ignored repeated calls for his resignation, has been stripped of his presidential powers by the Supreme Court till he is cleared of alleged wrongdoings in the scandal.

Manohar rued that there was no one in the board to take on N Srinivasan, mentioning that the board lacks leaders.

"The Board lacks leaders to take on Srinivasan who is shamelessly and stubbornly sticking to his chair. Nothing has moved in the last one year. The outbreak of the scandal happened in May 2013 and we are currently in April 2014," Manohar told PTI from Nagpur.

Manohar is eager that someone in the cricket administration can get up and raise the issue at the emergent working committee meeting which has been convened on April 20 at the Board's headquarters in Mumbai.

"In BCCI, the powers (related to board functioning) are vested with the working committee and the general body, and not with the President," he said.

Asked whether there was a need to change the Board's Constitution in the wake of Srinivasan's stubbornness, Manohar said: "You need 3/4th majority to remove someone and that means 24 out of 31 votes. When (former IPL chief) Lalit Modi was removed (and banned for life in 2010) all he needed (to escape the ban) was eight votes which he did not have," he stated.

Manohar, Srinivasan's immediate predecessor, refused to lay the blame on the cash-rich IPL for BCCI's current woes. "Just because of one minus point (spot-fixing scandal) you cannot blame the tournament which has a lot of plus points. It has enabled BCCI to pay former players and grant more money to the state associations for infrastructure developments," he maintained.

Meanwhile, another former president of the Indian cricket board, Jagmohan Dalmiya, welcomed the meeting and said it was about time that the board members took a call on Srinivasan.

Speaking to ESPNCricinfo, Dalmiya said: "Whatever is coming out of [the courts] in the last three-four days, the image of the BCCI is in jeopardy. That is what we need to talk about."

"I am happy that better sense has prevailed and an emergent meeting of the working committee has been convened by the BCCI. In fact, there are some issues of serious nature that need to be discussed at the earliest," he said.

"After all, it cannot be denied that the image of the BCCI has taken a beating of late. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to ensure that the BCCI's image is restored in the eyes of the cricket loving public of India," he added.

While he mentioned that an immediate decision cannot be taken at the meet, Dalmiya said it is important that the members hold discussions on what corrective measures can be taken.

"There cannot be anything decided [yet]. We feel the time has come when the discussions should take place, when the correct measures should be taken. And therefore unless we meet it is very difficult to formulate what decisions need to be taken,"

Dalmiya did not want to elaborate on what the measures would be while he mentioned that Srinivasan's ouster depended on how things pan out in the meeting.